Taking A Pass on Emily Oster's Request For Amnesty at The Atlantic

 At Townhall.com today, Laura Hollis has an article entitled They Knew They Were Wrong; We Warned Them, that reacts to an article at The Altnatic by one Emily Oster asking for forgiveness. She says they didn't know. But as Hollis points out, we warned them. Had they at least listened with an open mind...

The Atlantic magazine featured an article earlier this week authored by Emily Oster, an economist, and professor at Brown University. Oster looks back over the many grievous wrongs that were committed in the name of "public health" during the COVID-19 pandemic and invites us all to "declare a pandemic amnesty."

Hollis answers rather coldly:

I think not.

There should be no "amnesty" for those who held positions of power -- people like Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, or the mayors and governors who locked down entire cities and states, or the CEOs who demanded that all their employees take experimental shots or lose their jobs. They have not to request forgiveness. Whether they ultimately do so or not, the only proper response is to see to it that their hands never touch the reins of power again.

But Oster isn't speaking as a power broker; she's just an average American who was wearing masks outside as her 4-year-old son shouted "SOCIAL DISTANCING!" to another child who got "too close" when they were hiking. She's asking for blanket amnesty for the millions of Americans like her.

She acknowledges -- now -- that COVID-19 was not going to be transmitted outdoors. She admits that cloth masks do nothing. She concedes that "schools were closed for too long," and that American children have suffered monumental academic setbacks as a result. But it's not as if getting these things wrong was a "moral failing." "The thing is," she concludes, "we didn't know."

Oh, but you did know. We told you. You didn't listen.

Forgiveness is a process. It requires that the person seeking forgiveness ask for it and at least show sincere repentance. It may also require some form of penance: an act to show repentance. I agree that as for the power brokers, they have not asked, and deserve none. Indeed, some of them deserve jail, but of course that will never happen.

But as for giving blanket amnesty...again no. That mask Nazi that made your life miserable at work has never asked for forgiveness, so deserves none. And you know, given the chance, his authoritarian tendencies will come out again.

And then, there is the very real harm done to countless Americans by the actions of these ignorant people. Children were harmed, young people died as a result of taking the vaccines. There was an apparent drop in male fertility as a result of the vaccines. This is not something that can be shrugged off because the people who imposed these vaccines on the rest of us supposedly meant well.  But we know that many of them, by their actions, did not mean well.  Whether out of greed or ideology, many meant us harm.

So the answer to Professor Oster's request is "no." Not because those of us who were right want to "gloat" or "keep score." But because if those of us who were demanding free speech, serious scientific inquiry, and truth dismiss the past three years by saying, "Aw -- they meant well," they'll be back next time -- and there will be a next time -- just as ignorant, haughty, shrill and authoritarian as ever.

Update: Joy Pullman at The Federalist has a piece of her own on Oster's article entitled There Can Be No Amnesty on 'Lockdowns' Without a Reckoning.

We the people were never told by the Covid totalitarians that their predictions were “uncertain” and “complicated.” They were so certain of their false claims that they sent police to record the license plates of people who attended church on Easter, a constitutional and human right. They shut down schools while keeping abortion facilities and marijuana dispensaries open. They were so sure of their moral righteousness that they seemingly gleefully threatened people’s ability to feed their kids if they didn’t take experimental injections for a disease that may have posed little risk to them. The vaccine mandates led to dangerous employee shortages at hospitals, police departments, and now in the U.S. military.

None of this deliberately inflicted mass suffering was necessary, and that was all known early on. It wasn’t, as Oster claims, a matter of “deep uncertainty.” Among others, Dr. Scott Atlas very publicly presented strong evidence that mask mandates and shutdowns were poor policy choices throughout 2020. He was brutalized in the media and his own Ivy League university for pointing out this data. So were the eminent authors of the Great Barrington Declaration that made similar data-based arguments, Drs. Jay Bhattacharya, Sunetra Gupta, and Martin Kulldorff.

As I pointed out at the time, when my work sent me home in March 2020, I had too much time to read, and I had concluded by May of that year that lockdowns, so called "social distancing," mask requirements and other totalitarian measures were necessary. Furthermore, I was skeptical of the vaccines and would not have taken it but feelt pressured to.

Read both articles. Then take your anger and go out and vote. This can never happen again.